Bad rap, namesakes and The Oscars!

I have to apologise that today's blog post is a bit of a piecemeal thing. Basically I got to the end of the week and had a few different things I wanted to talk about but none of them are really big enough or important enough to warrant a whole post on their own. So I guess this blog post is a bit like one of those meals where you have a few small dishes instead one big one, like teppanyaki or tapas. It's a rich tapas-try.* Gawd, is anyone really hungry now? Anyway, let's crack on.

First, I would like to thank everyone who commented on Wednesday's post. It was a strange day here in Christchurch and your supportive and complimentary comments really helped and reminded me why blogging is an awesome format. You guys are choice.

My day was quite emotional in places and gave me the opportunity to see how far we've all come. In that spirit I did something slightly hokey and wore the same outfit (more or less) that I wore on February 22, 2011. I then strong-armed the Silver Fox into taking a photo of me in the same place my friend Tulip had snapped me a year before (the results are below).

As you can see, I'm a damn sight less stressed out in the second picture and my posture hasn't improved but the real difference is in the landscape, with my old work building now a thing of the past and the footpath looking typically "Christchurchian" (you can't see but there are also quite a few extra grey hairs this year and I have more split ends). So I just thought that this would be an interesting visual way of showing what has changed, albeit in one small corner of the city.

Next up, I have the pleasure of sharing with you an old music video from a Hungarian rapper named "Speak". The Silver Fox's sister discovered this gem while living in Romania. It's awful. I'm not going to say it's the worst music video I've ever seen because I'm far too familiar with the insanity you can find on YouTube to lay such a claim. But it is, I promise, achingly terrible. If after 4 minutes and 12 seconds of this you're not physically recoiling from the speakers, there's something wrong with you. Also, if the SF and I are anything to go by you may feel the need to sprinkle otherwise normal conversations with the words "yeh-comoh-thasrigh".

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There's something about bad rap that makes it worse than just bad singing (though, thanks to the "melodic" breakdown in the "chorus", this has BOTH). It's like bad scatting by well-meaning jazz school students. It sets my teeth on edge in way that little else can. God, I love it.

Another thing that has excited me this week (though in a slightly less cringey way) is an unusual request I received via Facebook from a heavily pregnant expat Kiwi living in Argentina called Teresa. She and her husband would like to give their baby a Māori name and have decided that they like "Moata" but Argentinian regulations only allow you to give a child a real name so they're looking for evidence that "Moata" is an actual given name and not something someone just made up. They'll be using this blog as a source but are looking for any other instances that can provide "proof". I've suggest Moata Moa (Pukunui's sidekick) but if anyone can source an instance of "Moata" in a baby name book, or other people named Moata who might be able to help, please leave a comment below or on the Blog Idle Facebook page. Let's increase the number of Moatas! World domination or bust!

And lastly (as if that weren't enough) a piece of exciting news. You know how the Oscars are so inconveniently placed during a Monday here in New Zealand, when you're at work and can't blob around on the couch soaking up the red carpet glamour because you have to do things with spreadsheets? Well, I will be live-blogging the Oscars right here on Stuff with fellow snark-ian Chris Philpott so you can keep up to date with what's what. Expect unfettered George Clooney worship (me) and general confusion about red carpet fashion (Chris). I intend on wearing a plastic tiara the whole time and noshing on Doritos and I hope that you can join me. Oh, and did I mention Billy Crystal is back hosting this year? If there is a musical montage number, I may dance in my living room.

Anyway, please do your usual and have a chat about any of the above that tickles your fancy in the comments below? Know any Moatas? A fan of Hungarian rapping?

* I'd like to abjectly apologise for that pun...but I can't because, you know what, I still kind of like it. Screw you. Puns are supposed to be awful.